Nilanjan Ray
Sr. Vice President Head, SME Banking, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
Nilanjan Ray currently heads the SME business in Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB). ADCB is the second largest bank in Abu Dhabi promoted by govt. owned entities. Prior to joining ADCB in October 2007, Nilanjan had worked in ICICI Bank, Bahrain as Vice President - Corporate & Commercial Banking.
Prior to his assignments in GCC, Nilanjan was heading Asset Products & Credit for ICICI bank, Business Banking (SME) in India. He has also worked in HDFC Bank & IDBI Bank in India in various senior roles in SME Banking, Cash Management & Fixed Income Sales.
He was part of the start-up teams in SME Banking in ICICI Bank & HDFC Bank.
He started his career with Agriculture Finance Corporation, Mumbai in Project Evaluation & Monitoring.
Nilanjan holds a post graduate business degree & a graduate degree in Economics.
HR and management
Debbie Nicol
Owner and Principal Consultant, business en motion fz llc
Debbie's career has been solely dedicated to embedding life-long learning into organizational behaviour, enabling the people to be business drivers. Commencing her career as a teacher, Debbie soon developed a passion for organizational development, applying it across Hotel Management Companies such as Hyatt, Rezidor and Rotana in property, regional and International leadership roles.
Recognizing opportunity in alternate industries, her own business, business en motion fz llc currently partners with the Banking, Logistics, Oil, Retail, Information Security and Government sectors across the GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia. With GAC, HBI, Al Elm Group of Companies and IATA as key clients, business en motion fz llc adds value to both large corporations and growing, mid-sized companies.
business en motion fz llc and its team of on-call specialists provides highly-skilled project assistance, individually selected for every project. Being in high demand for her own leadership workshops, strategic approaches to sustainable change, executive coaching and public speaking engagements, Debbie's USP is the ability to open minds of those around her. Corporate success has been supported by two Masters Degrees, a Masters in Online Education and a Masters of Linguistics.
A twice-published author, Debbie's strategic, focussed, open-minded, fun approach to growing individuals and corporations gains both sustainable and 'real' results.
Being an IT driven business, DIC
Majed Al Suwaidi
Director of Business Development, Dubai Internet City and Dubai Outsource Zone
Majed Al Suwaidi currently oversees business development at both clusters overseeing sales strategies, functions and activities besides streamlining operations to ensure peak performance of DIC and DOZ regional sales department. He makes sure sales functions policies and procedures are compliant enough for both organizations.
Since the time he joined DIC as Director of Sales in April 2006 he has been able to re-organise the sales structure through integration of products and services as well as efficiently segmenting the team based on regional targets.
Majed effectively aligned the Dubai Internet City's Sales strategy within TECOM Investment's Overall strategy; as he believes internal alignment and consistency in procedures and objectives is a key for success and efficiency.
Majed is also heading the FirstSteps@DIC Division which is a unique facility specifically designed for ICT companies wanting to operate from Dubai on a short term basis.
Five years of his professional career was with Emirates Airlines followed by his role in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) as a core member of the business development team.
As an individual, Majed is known to have a strong drive for continuous growth, progress and achievement. He is a positive professional who believes that people are the most important asset as well as to respect, accept and understand others is essential.
He believes that in order to outperform, one has to fully comprehend the local and international market trends and that Strategy is not just about growth, but more about content.
Majed, a graduate with a Masters degree in Business Administration, aims for continuous development through on-going education and alignment of professional and personal goals
CRM and other ways to boost business
Shobha Moni
Vice President, Operations, Triad Software House
Shobha is an experienced entrepreneur with a successful track record in setting up a new business venture in software services.
With a strong international background in business development, Shobha specialises in defining clear business plans and owning P&L responsibility. She also has an excellent knowledge range with enterprise software and Mid Tier software solutions for SMEs, especially in the CRM space.
Comfortable presenting to a multi-cultural audience, Shobha is well known for her excellent communication skills, especially in translating loosely stated concerns or requirements by CXOs into a cohesive solution with clear benefits.
She is very passionate about process improvement and using technology to drive business benefits.
Emirati-expat business
Abdulmuttalib Talib Al Hashimi
Managing Director, Next Level Management Consultancy
Abdulmuttalib Talib Al Hashimi is an Emirati entrepreneur, Emiratisation expert, co-founder and Managing Director of Next Level Management Consultancy, an Emiratisation consultancy firm. Al Hashimi holds over 12 years of private sector experience, both as an employee and employer. He is also a member of the advisory board of AIESEC, the international youth empowerment and leadership platform, and is a regular participant in their events where he has been actively coaching young graduates.
Besides that, he judges for the quarterly Dubai Women's College Business Plan and Entrepreneurship competition. Al Hashimi was also a speaker in the 2009 GCC Nationalisation summit. In 2009, he was selected as one of 40 young Arab entrepreneurs for the Silatech project and summit. Silatech is an innovative initiative by H.H Sheikha Moza Al Misnad of Qatar to tackle issues of unemployment and enterprise creation in the Arab world. Al Hashimi is also an Assessor with the Dubai Quality Awards (DQA).
ICT services for SMEs
Raghav Mimani
Marketing Manager, Enterprise SME Segment, du
Raghav has over eight years experience in the telecom domain having previously led teams in the functions of marketing, sales and technology.
At present he is the leader of operational teams, project manager and product manager for new and existing products at du. He specialises in conceptualising and orchestrating marketing campaigns that effectively generate revenues and build brand image.
Raghav has also strong skills as a solutions consultant and specialised product manager for devices and mobile data services having service experience in both India and UAE.
Implementing Quality standards - Pitfalls to avoid
Sathyavageeswaran (Sathya)
Head of Strategy and Risk Consulting, Morison Menon
Sathya works as Head of Strategy and Risk Consulting at Morison Menon. Prior to Morison Menon he has worked with Aditya Birla, KPMG, ONGC and Apollo Tyres.
He has two decades of experience spanning across Petroleum and Refining, Steel and Automotive Tyres and Information Technology Sectors. He has worked in various capacities managing Operations, Procurement, Compliance and Consulting roles. His strengths are in leveraging strengths of people, processes and technology to achieve goals.
He loves numbers and relies on them to make business decisions and can sense pattern from their randomness.
Sathya believes that only thing that is constant at work is "to keep learning".
Sathya is a B.Tech (Chemical Engineering) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur India.
John has a MBA and MS in Telecommunications from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California, USA.
Social Networking
Mita Srinivasan
Director, Market Buzz International
Young at heart, Mita is a PR specialist who lives and breathes technology. With over 17 years experience in PR & Marketing (more than 10 years around IT), Mita has worked on strategic marketing and PR plans for companies as diverse as automobile dealerships, logistic companies, electronics, music, publishing and IT. She has successfully assisted with the launch of new products, services and start up companies.
She is an active proponent of social media – not only adopting this medium for herself but conducting special training sessions and workshops to empower her clients, colleagues and networking business partners to maximise the use of these creative tools for communication; successfully building it into PR strategies.
Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mita56
LinkedIn: http://ae.linkedin.com/in/mitasrinivasan
